Pizza Hut has come under fire in China after a deliveryman reportedly died when he was sent out during last week's typhoon Haikui which forced an estimated 374,000 people from their homes.

Last Wednesday, as the "red alert" typhoon slammed into Shanghai, 24-year-old Zhang Jinzhong, was reportedly electrocuted after a falling tree cut through a high-tension cable.

"It was his last delivery of the night, but he never made it back home," a colleague who declined to be named told the Global Times newspaper.

The employee claimed the local Pizza Hut manager had asked more senior employees to suspend deliveries but was rebuffed. Shanghai branches of KFC and McDonalds did suspend their operations, the employee added.

"Pizza Hut should take all of the responsibility for my cousin's death," the victim's cousin, Li Dongzhi, told the Global Times. "How could they require him to go out in such bad weather?"

According to reports, Pizza Hut, which is owned by global restaurant conglomerate Yum! Brands, has offered 600,000 yuan (around £60,000) to the family in compensation. The family has reportedly demanded 950,000 yuan.

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The company's Beijing headquarters did not respond to a request for information on the case on Tuesday.

Pizza Hut managers in Shanghai told the Global Times they had been instructed to stay silent. "After the accident, the company held a meeting and told us to stop discussing it," one employee said.

Pizza Hut's first Chinese restaurant opened in Beijing in 1990 and the chain now has over more than 600 branches nationwide, with international fast-food brands looking to the country's rapidly expanding fast-food market for new sources of income.